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Napa Whines About Vines
Besides fine wine and food, the Napa Valley's greatest draw may be its vistas of terraced vineyards and forested hills. But the tranquillity these vistas promise is largely an illusion: the valley's hillsides have become ground zero in a fight that is not just pitting environmentalists against agriculture but also grape grower against grape grower.
Property values in the valley are skyrocketing, with prices of $60,000 an acre or more for prime land now common. "Everybody seems to wants a Tuscan villa with a vineyard," says Napa Resource Conservation District volunteer Chip Bouril. Environmentalists say the hunger for land is threatening habitat for endangered species, such as spotted owls and steelhead trout, and increasing pressure on the Napa River, already included on the 303(d) list of impaired water bodies due to sediment (see page 2). Responding to the entreaties of concerned citizens - and, some say, to the specter of new state and federal regulation - the Napa Planning Commission approved an amendment to the county's General Plan this September that could lay the groundwork for new restrictions on farming, timber harvesting and development. The Napa County Board of Supervisors is scheduled to vote on the proposal in December.
Napa County already has one of the strictest erosion control ordinances in the country, although until recently enforcement has been lax, say area growers on both sides of the amendment issue. The county is now focusing on enforcement, an effort Jim Lincoln of the Farm Bureau believes is behind the amendment. "This is just being done to add language to the General Plan to validate the existing ordinance, " he says. The Farm Bureau supports the amendment - to the chagrin of many area growers, who have formed their own association, Farmers for Napa Valley, to fight the proposal.
Resource managers say that as stringent as the existing hillside ordinance is, it may not be enough to protect the Napa River because converting forest to vineyard alters the hydrology of the watershed. "The runoff coefficient - the percentage of rainfall that immediately runs off the land into rivers and streams - increases as more land is cleared," says Bouril. The higher volume of water can cause stream banks to fail, in turn contributing sediment to waterways.
Some fear that too much extra runoff might threaten the innovative flood control plan approved by county voters last spring. Under the plan, many levees and dams that have failed to contain the Napa River so often in recent years will be torn out, and the river permitted to revert to its natural state. However, the plan rests on the assumption that the river's flows will not exceed historic highs by much.
Chris Malan of Concerned Citizens for Napa Hillsides says her group will use the language in the amendment to seek zoning changes designating hillside land as protected watershed and requiring buffer zones between vineyards and riparian corridors. Nevertheless, the Farm Bureau's Lincoln says he doesn't expect the amendment to lead to any new "onerous or unworkable ordinances."
Opponents of the amendment fear new regulations that they say would unfairly penalize responsible growers. "Most of us have been doing all the right things to protect the hillsides, but there have been a few bad eggs who have caused serious problems," says Richard Camera of the Hess Collection winery. "Now all we hear about are the bad farmers, and we're talking about additional restrictions and another layer of bureaucracy. We just need to enforce the laws we have."
Stuart Smith of Smith-Madrone Winery suggests that the amendment may be misdirected. "Urban development causes much more runoff than vineyards; maybe we should be looking at that," he says. Both Smith and Camera note that less than 1% of the land in Napa County is even suitable for hillside vineyards. "There is a question of scale here that has to be addressed," says Camera.
Debate over the proposed amendment is fueled by a dearth of data on the river and its tributary streams. A citizen group is working with the Resource Conservation District to gather basic water quality and flow data, but so far there isn't enough information to draw concrete conclusions about the health of the watershed. "The less data there are the more polar the argument becomes," observes Bouril.
Opponents of the amendment say they hope the county will defer action until it receives a report from the Watershed Task Force now being convened by the RCD to assemble and analyze what data there are on the river, timber harvests, vineyard conversion and other watershed issues. "To adopt this amendment now is putting the cart before the horse," says Smith. "We need to be guided by science and fact, not emotion."
Contact: Chris Malan (707)255-7434 or Stuart Smith (707)963-2283
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